We’re so excited to share that FactSet’s “Not Just the Facts” campaign has earned three major wins at the 2025 ANA B2 Awards, which celebrate the very best in business-to-business marketing.
Developed with our amazing client FactSet, the campaign challenged the conventions of boring B2B financial marketing by spotlighting a common frustration: financial professionals need data, but facts without context are useless. With a smart, tongue-in-cheek approach, “Not Just the Facts” positioned FactSet as the antidote—offering insights that are as meaningful as they are actionable.
These awards reflect the power of blending creative bravery with strategic clarity, and what’s possible when a brand is willing to break away from the usual B2B playbook. Congratulations to everyone involved in bringing this vision to life, and thank you to ANA and the jury for this honor.
VSA Partners Chief Creative Officer Curt Schreiber recently sat down with Ricardo Esteves of DesignRush to discuss how the digital era changed advertising and branding.
Ricardo and Curt discussed the changing role of traditional branding and advertising, how to be a great desiginer, the biggest trends in advertising and branding and how AI will impact marketing.
Read the full article. Thanks to DesignRush for the feature!
Photo credit: AIGA.
Lux Capital, the revolutionary venture capital firm known for its uncanny ability to identify and fund successful innovators in the science and tech space, believes in the power of brand. That’s why it’s invested in a new brand awareness campaign, including a recent website overhaul with VSA Partners.
Guided by Lux’s mission to turn “sci-fi into sci-fact,” the team at VSA Partners set out to capture the rigorous science-based focus that established the Lux brand while presenting the company as a VC powerhouse that manages a $4 billion portfolio. The new work, which includes identity assets along with a redesigned website, comes at a critical time for Lux, showcasing its evolution from investing at the earliest stages of a company to include growth and late-stage investments as well.
“We have a unique reputation among VC firms,” said Lux Capital Chief Marketing Officer Scott Rubin. “Our partners and associates don’t come from the financial world. They are all scientists and engineers, which enables us to dig in deeper and truly evaluate the viability of scientific innovation or emerging technology. With this refreshed brand identity, we’re breaking the mold for what you expect from a VC firm, but we want investors and innovators to recognize this difference. It’s who we are at our core, and VSA Partners did a phenomenal job of helping us tell that story.”
We approached the UX and content strategy for Lux Capital’s new site with the goal of telling its story by highlighting the companies it grows and the innovations it enables.”
“We’re seeing venture capital become increasingly crowded,” says John Sheehan, Partner, Client Engagement at VSA San Francisco. “Lux Capital’s commitment to expressing their brand is a valuable, differentiating asset that other VCs are simply leaving on the table.”
The redesigned website allows visitors to take a journey through both the firm’s mission and portfolio, showcasing how Lux Capital is every bit as innovative as the startups and established companies in which it invests.
VSA Creative Director Michael Trovela notes, “We approached the UX and content strategy for Lux Capital’s new site with the goal of telling its story by highlighting the companies it grows and the innovations it enables. That direction led to us a site design that emphasizes the interconnectedness between people, companies and ideas. It’s a visual blending of these elements that showcases how the success of Lux Capital’s approach is its own interconnected innovation.”
“We’ve been helping companies realize their brand purpose and lift themselves above the competition for a long time, but this is some of the most rewarding work we’ve ever done,” says Sheehan. “Lux Capital is a firm that’s truly committed to making the world a better place. From biotech startups working on methods for restoring eyesight to firms involved in making workplaces safer through new robotics, they’re consistently at the forefront of science and innovation. The chance to delve into this background and to help them establish the next chapter of their evolution was truly an honor.”
VSA Chief Creative Officer Curt Schreiber joins a select group of agency and industry experts who will choose the winners of this year’s REGGIE Awards. For 40 years, these awards have been a highly anticipated annual showcase from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the U.S. advertising industry’s oldest and largest trade association. The awards recognize campaigns that combine strategy, originality, execution, results and business objectives. Last year’s best-of-show award was taken home by Mischief @ No Fixed Address for its work on the beauty brand eos.
“It’s always fun to see and reward great creative work that builds true business value,” Curt said. “My experience with the REGGIE Awards will be all that much richer because the criteria so closely mirror VSA’s ethos of combining strategy, design and measurement.”
REGGIE Award categories span experiential, digital/social media, sponsorship, influencer, brand purpose, content, B2B and age-specific campaigns. Gold, silver and bronze winners are selected in addition to the best-of-show Super REGGIE, which is drawn from the gold winners. All winners will be revealed at the REGGIE Awards Gala on April 27, 2023, at the ANA Brand Masters Conference in Bonita Springs, Florida.
VSA celebrated its 40th anniversary in November 2022. Longtime clients include Google, Nike and IBM, and VSA has offices in Chicago, New York and San Francisco. VSA belongs to the international family of unified and independent agencies led by Meet The People.
We are honored to share that the work for “Until Justice Just Is” received a Bronze Award in this year’s Anthem Awards. The Anthem Awards, founded by The Webby Awards, celebrate purpose- and mission-driven work from people, companies and organizations worldwide.
VSA developed “Until Justice Just Is” in collaboration with the YWCA, a group famous for its advocacy and support for women. But the organization has also stood on the front lines of eliminating racism for well over a century, and during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, it wanted a way to invite people to join its mission—and empower them to make a real, measurable impact. The site gives individuals and companies a place to publicly pledge their support for antiracist efforts, access tools and resources to use in their own communities, and join the YWCA’s Racial Justice League, where they can share best practices and hold each other accountable for change.
Congratulations to the current VSAers who contributed to this work: Kim Mickenberg, Avery Gross, Jess Sochol, Susan Pfeifer, Emily Gorski, Bryan Haney, Sam Stalling and Amy Bretz.
And to the rest of the team: Chrystine Witherspoon, Elle Abarca, Evan Thompson, Melanie Trombley, Tré Seals at Vocal Type, Darrell Booker, Daniel Delgado, Ben Strang at Sarofsky and post-production audio house Another Country.
VSA’s Jerry Stiedaman, Associate Partner, Client Engagement, was recently published in MedCity News. His article, “Healthcare and Gen X: 4 Things Marketers Need to Get Right,” examines how despite its spending and decision-making power, Gen X is routinely overlooked by healthcare marketers. Jerry outlines why healthcare marketers should consider the Gen X audience, and the four steps to winning the generation’s loyalty and attention.
Read an excerpt below.
When it comes to healthcare marketing, Generation X once again gets the short end of the attention stick.
Overshadowed by boomers—a prime target for healthcare advertising dollars as they age and require more care—and millennials—the holy grail audience for the emerging health-tech industry—Gen X’s unique healthcare needs and position often leave its members underserved and mostly ignored.
Gaining the attention and loyalty of just one Gen X consumer can grant healthcare marketers a fast-track audience with all of their family members.”
This oversight is a massive missed opportunity for healthcare marketers. First off, Gen X is at the height of its spending potential. Its U.S. population of 65 million has saved a collective $13 trillion and owns 29% of the nation’s household wealth (versus just 6.4% owned by millennials).
It’s also the sandwich generation, which means Gen Xers make healthcare decisions for their aging boomer parents and their millennial children in addition to themselves. Gaining the attention and loyalty of just one Gen X consumer can grant healthcare marketers a fast-track audience with all of their family members.
Just like its neighboring generations, Gen X has unique perspectives and needs that marketers must know. Here are four ways that healthcare marketers can better connect with their Gen X consumers:
Gen X was the first real healthcare consumer, coming into purchasing power after the patient rights movement of the 1970s and the healthcare consumer rights movement of the 1990s. It also witnessed the rise of pharmaceutical ads targeted directly to consumers, which began as early as the ’80s and exploded full force in the late ’90s. As with other buying experiences, Gen X is accustomed to shopping around for its healthcare.
Gen X’s comparison for the self-determined selection of healthcare experiences makes investing in a brand critically important for healthcare businesses. Companies need to invest in a strong brand that stands out from competitors and creates a connection with the Gen X consumer. Ensuring a consistent, clear narrative across all points of the consumer journey demands a brand that is well-equipped to carry its message.
VSA Partners is celebrating its 40th anniversary! Since our founding in 1982, VSA Partners has become an integral part of the Chicago design and strategy community and has worked with top brands, like IBM, Google and Nike, to help companies break through in an increasingly noisy world.
To mark the milestone of our 40th year, we sought to do something different from the typical approach that companies might take to celebrate such occasions.
“We easily could have focused this anniversary as a retrospective on the exceptional work VSA is known for,” says CEO Anne-Marie Rosser. “But what really makes VSA successful is our people and their laser focus on designing for a better human experience. We knew that any effort to mark our anniversary should reflect the VSA way of thinking that has driven our work for 40 years and will continue to empower us for years to come.”
With this framework, VSA created an insightful, playful and at times poignant video series exploring the power of design in all its forms. The result is a window into the minds here at VSA, and how team members channel the world of design into their work.
The editorial campaign focuses on a wide range of concepts, from museum branding to detective shows to kitchen gadgets. Each video then explores how these transformational ideas have improved and enhanced the creativity of individual staff members.
“We too often take for granted the products, services and social constructs of the modern world,” says Chief Creative Officer Curt Schreiber. “But when we take time to examine how these innovations have radically changed and improved our lives, we’ll often find deep inspiration for the next big innovation yet to come.”
The video series comprises short videos of less than a minute apiece. Partner and Head of Design Thom Wolfe explains, “The idea is to not overwhelm people with our inspirations, but to encourage them to consider their own sources of inspiration and ultimately create a social dialogue about the role of design.”
Explore the complete collection.
“If just one person or marketer who views this video is inspired to approach their world through human-centered design, we’ll count this as a success,” says Rosser. “When we lead with designing for the human on the other end of the experience, that’s when truly magical things happen.”
